FBI agents train police

IMPARTING problem solving skills and techniques is the main focus of a week-long community-based policing seminar under way in Port Moresby.
Facilitators, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) special agents Ronald Curtis and John Gilles and Montgomery county police captain Terry Pierce are in the country at the invitation of the US Embassy in Port Moresby to train local police officers in aspects of community policing.
Curtis, who plays a supervisory role at the International Training and Assistance Unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, said the seminar was to “introduce officers to techniques that the FBI uses in reacting to community policing needs”.
He said the techniques were meant to be used as models by those officers taking part in the seminar.
He said real cases and experiences would be used as part of the programme.
He said Papua New Guinea was not new to community policing but they were here to impart new techniques to the participants to help them in their work.
A participant Sgt Claire Rambu, said the programme had been an eye-opener for her.
“This is what RCPNG needs more than anything else,” she said referring to the programme.
She said what she learnt was that community policing was about police going right into the community and working with the people.
“It is about identifying the needs of the community in terms of policing and not what the police want or think is right,” she said.
Twenty-one participants from divisions of the police force attended the event, five of whom were female officers.
The seminar was funded by the US Embassy and was coordinated by US regional security officer Dan Bleakmore.